Ok, that would perfectly match goedel (also dual, also 4G) :-) One
question though: the Symbios Logic 53c895 SCSI-controller in goedel
acts weird in SMP mode (tried some 2.4 and 2.6 kernels) which is why
the machine runs in single CPU mode all the time. Does it work for
you?

We don't currently run Linux on any of the larger servers, so I
haven't had any experience of that yet. Certainly haven't had any
trouble on DS10Ls, which are the largest machine I have yet tried.

Judging by the SRM show config output, this machine does not use that
SCSI controller, but has dual QLogic controllers:

The KGPSA and Memory Channel controllers will not be there when
Debian gets the machine (or at least won't be connected to anything -
we don't want to keep the HSG80 arrays going, the maintenance is too
expensive -- I'd probably use software RAID1 on internal disks instead)

Or do you have a different controller?

OK, I've double checked with the boss. We're decommissioning an 8-
node DS20E Tru64 cluster this week, and he's happy for us to have one
of the machines. This will be a dual-CPU 500 MHz EV67 machine with
2GB RAM (not quite what I was hoping for, but hopefully good
enough). I hopefully can grab some of the RAM out of one of the
others to beef up the new Debian machine.

Within a few months he says we can replace it with a quad CPU ES45
once those clusters are decommissioned, which will be 1GHz CPUs at
least, and depending on which machine we get, could have anything
from 4-16 GB memory.

Ok, so I guess that your offer fits all conditions so I'd say that we
have a new local buildd admin :-) Any objection?

Nope. Got boss approval, and there are three DD's in our systems
team (myself, Dave Holland and Simon Kelley) who will be happy to do
any console stuff that might be required.

Please speak
The next steps for the machine to become a buildd would be:
* send "debian-admin" a mail that you're preparing a new machine as a
buildd so that we can qualify for etch. Ask, who of the admins
would like to get a superuser login.

OK, I'll do that today.

* install a fresh Sarge on the box, best with no real user so there
won't be UID clashes

Fair enough.

* on goedel and escher there are "adminloginR"-accounts with uid 0 so
that the Debian Admins can do whatever they want and you can keep
being "root". If they tell you who will care for the start (I guess
that'll be Joey) send him a GPG-crypted password
* wait for a while (can be weeks)

:-) It'll be at least a week for us to install the machine anyway;
the transition of the current operational cluster to its new hardware
needs to have completed successfully this week (it's scheduled for
Wednesday, and they'll want to test for a couple of weeks, this being
a 24/7 DNA sequencing production cluster) and then I'll need to
physically move the machine since the current cluster's rack will be
being dismantled to make room for something else, and it needs to be
moved to a DMZ rack anyway.

You can of course choose a name but I'd recommend "bach". First, it
definitely fits the original naming scheme
http://people.debian.org/~joey/misc/naming.html
of "classical composers (including baroque, romantics and
impressionists) of choir music" and secondly the Alpha machines would
form the "Goedel, Escher, Bach"-triple[1] :-)

Sounds good to me. I approve - singing in choirs is one of my other
hobbies...